On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

• Mark 4:35-41

Immediately he made his disciples get into the baot and go on ahead to the other side, to Behsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After waying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

When evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea. He intended to pass them by. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

• Mark 6:45-52

The other week my pastor posed a question in relationship to Mark’s depiction of the demioniac in chapter 5:1-20. Why is it that in this story the thing the disciples fear is not the demons but the transformed (clothed and in right mind) man? I had been pondering this question, finding it an illuminating expression of how it is that we tend to deal with our fears as people. Is it that they deal with their fear by demonizing the other? In this case it makes sense why the transformed man would be the thing they resist, as for as long as one can conflate the demon with the other it means we are on the right side of the equaion.

Or is it that they fear the power of the one who can command the demons? This is certainly a common theme in the Gospel according to Mark, people responding to Jesus’ power in fear. In nearly every case this relates to who Jesus is. There is a sense in which discovering who Jesus is overturns our own lives.

It very well could be both of those things at once. “The other side,” according to my commentaries, was a place known for its association with strange activity. Thus fear would have naturally been built in to these sea crossings. It was when we walked through Chapter 6 this past week, the second storm narrative (6:45-52), that I felt some of my thoughts coming together.

If, as I have reflected on in previous blogs in this space, the opening of Mark 1 awakens us to not just the beginning of the story of Jesus but the beginning of a new creation story (the Gospel which proclaims the arrival and inaugeration of this new creation, also called the arrival of the kingdom of God or “the fulfillment of time”, 1:15), the author of Mark’s Gospel gives us not just a portrait of contrasting kingdoms but contrasting rule. The one who “is more powerful than I,” says John, is coming. And what is the ultimate expression of this coming? Baptizing with the Holy Spirit, the very thing that has the power to transform. 

For Mark, the story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is marked by his intent to frame it within Israel’s story, conjuring up the picture of Israel as God’s child and firstborn (Exodus 4; Hosea 11:1; Jeremiah 31). The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness (which is where John already was proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, bringing the people from the whole Judean countryside and Jerusalem out to him in 1:4) where Jesus confronts the very powers enslaving God’s good creation, doing what God had promised to do through the raising up of Israel as his covenant people.

From here Mark jumps straight into Jesus’ ministry with the words “follow me.” Jesus is on the move and the called people are called to move with him in this transforming work, leading them straight into a confrontation with the same powers Jesus encountered in the wilderness. Powers that fear Jesus has come to “destroy” them precisely because they know who Jesus is (1:24)

This begins a patterned movement early on in the Gospel according to Mark between Jesus entering houses and synagogues, creating this interesting contrast between those on the inside and those on the outside. The house is a picture of the the temple/tabernacle, which is where God has taken up residence in the midst of a creation enslaved to the Powers of Sin and Death according to the story of Israel (the Torah). It is a microcosm of Eden where Adam and Eve ultimately enter the wilderness. Thus we find the crowds consistently positioned at the doorway, representing that inbetween space of conflict and disruption. And yet the Jesus we encounter in Mark is one who is on the move, and in Chapter 6 we find this pattern giving way to the gradual process of breaking down the walls between the temple and the wilderness. Following a chapter on the nature of God’s kingdom (chapter 4), we have these two framed “storm” passages quoted above marked by getting into the boat and going to the other side, the first indication that what is contained inbetween reflects an important transitional point in the narrative. If the first storm narrative brings about a particular response (“Do you not care that we are perishing”, 4:38), a response that echos the very words of the demons (“Have you come to destroy us”, 1:24), the second storm narrative in chapter 6 is said to evoke fear (“they saw him and were terrified”, 6:50) because they did not understand about the loaves (6:52).

Only a few chapters later the author of Mark will bring in a second framing device using twinned “feeding” stories, underscoring an important connection to the storm narratives, stating again that they do not yet understand. Back in 2:21-28 Jesus is picking grain on the sabbath, leading him to call back to David when challenged to note how David entered the house of God, ate, broke bread and fed the people, an unlawful act in light of the Torah. What then does this mean for Jesus to pick grain on the sabbath? Here the clear indication is that the sabbath is reflective of the arrival of the new careation. Soon we will have this very picture being applied to breaking loaves and feeding the crowds in the wilderness- creation being tranformed.

Thus, if the feeding is positioned here within two storm narratives as the “point,” it seems a fair to suggest that the reason they fear the transformed man seems intimately tied to what Jesus is doing in the wilderness. To feed the crowds, when seen in light of the gathering of the grain on the sabbath for the sake of this feeding, belongs to the same act of transofrming the world Jesus is bringing the Spirit to. Indeed, what is even more interesting is what ultimately brings us to this second storm passage, which is the stunning statment that Jesus has no power in his hometown (6:5), indicating that the movement of the Spirit is to be found in the wilderness. It is for this reason that Jesus calls the twelve (evoking the story of Israel) and sends them out into the wilderness two by two (which reflects the concern for proper “witness” within the law), giving them the same authority we find them fearing in response to seeing the transformed man- authority over the enslaving powers. A point of transition that is then marked by the death of John the Baptist, a narrative move that brings us all the way back to the beginning of chapter 1 and the one who is “more powerful” coming to baptize in the Spirit. Now the disciples are the ones casting out demons.and bringing about transformation in others.

What’s even more striking? The fact that the crowds who have recognized Jesus to this point now recognize the disciples/apostles (6:30-37), which is where the disciples urge Jesus to send them away so that they might buy their own food. Jesus’ response? “You give them something to eat.” (6:37) In the second feeding the story it is not resistance to the feeding that marks the disciples repeated command to “feed” the people (8:1-3) but the question “how can one feed” these people in the wilderness.

Just as the disciples are now casting out demons as Jesus did, the feeding of the crowd is followed by Jesus sending the disciples to the other side on their own (reversing Jesus’ movement of going ahead of the disciples), Jesus insstead ascending the mountain in the manner of Moses. Lest we forget the ways in which Jesus is being framed within the story of Israel. This is when the storm comes. One feature of this narrative point is the fact that the storm comes early in the evening and Jesus doess not go out until early in the morning, This indicates a whole night of “straining at the oars against the adverse winds.” Another distinguishing factor of this second storm narrative- they weren’t in danger. They were struggling to get to the other side. This is where we get the language of Jesus walking on the sea (evoking this image of something only God can do), with the intention of Jesus passing them by. Rather than this being a phrase that suggests neglect, its a phrase that indicates the arrival of God’s presence. Just as God’s presence passes by Moses, it passes by the disciples. It is a revelatory picture which once again brings about a response of fear. Fear that exist because they failed to understand the loaves. The very thing Jesus was gaethering grain for back in chapter 1.

So here is the lingering question- if they had understood the loaves how and in what way would this have addressed their fear? I feel like the narrative wants us as readers to connect this to the fear they have over seeing the transformed man. This is the question I am now sitting with. After all, they have now been casting out the demons and seeing the transformation through the Spirit working in their own hands. Which leads me to wonder if this fear would not be connected to something more fundamental. Something indicative of the larger reality this Gospel is proclaiming regarding the inbreaking of the kingdom and the transformation that its liberation from the enslaving powers means.

It feels like the same thing we find in the story of Israel and the people grumbling in the wilderness, echoing the eventual exasperation of the disciples- how can we feed the people (manna) in the wilderness? That somehow this liberation from slavery that brings us into the wilderness is precisely the thing that breeds this fear.

How can this be that the liberative act is followed up by this movement into a space that feels antithetical to what we might expect by such a fulfillment. In this sense the transformed man breeds fear precisely because of what it means for where the disciples are being called to go. Its an interesting thought. We all occupy this space in the wilderness. We are all part of the crowd standing between the doorway of hope on one side and despair on the other. In what sense does that space feel safer than the demons on one side and the transformation on the other? Is it that entering the house means being sent into the wilderness? Is this the nature of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom in an already-not yet reality? This inevitable sense that transformation means being awakened to not just the demons out there but the demons inside our own home and the responsibility this places to follow Jesus into the wilderness. And yet, to do so is precisely where we find the transformation of our home as well.

It’s this stark reality that is most difficult though- in an already-not-yet inbreaking of the kingdom we are called the carry the tension, not do away with it. In this sense I wonder if the fear is the awareness that seeing the transformed man means having to face the demons themselves. This resistance to this participatory nature of the Gospel. The very thing that leads to having to row against the winds of resistance with all of our questions and uncertainties. The Gospel according ot Mark tells us that this is precisely when and where God passes us by. We might feel like we are left fending for ourselves, when the point is that God is still going ahead of us in the struggle, making the new creation reality known through this participation. God is at work making all things new, feeding the world in the wilderness. This is the art of learning to see Jesus rather than a ghost.

Here’s my list of watches for January:

The Old Woman With the Knife (Min Kyu-dong, 2026)- a stylish South Korean indie action film with some nice character beats

Night Call (Michiel Blanchart, 2025)- a tense low budget thriller about a guy who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time from France and Belgium (co-production).

Song Sung Blue (Craig Brewer, 2025)- a true story and a genuine and somewhat suprising crowd pleaser with a genuine emotional punch from the American Director who gave us Footloose

We Bury The Dead (Zak Hilditch, 2026)- Australian mid budget zombie film with an interesting and unique premise and some thoughtful thematic undertones starring the always great Daisy Ridley

Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper, 2026)- not the follow up to A Star is Born and Maestro I was expecting, going instead for a far less flashy, low key character film about a struggling marriage, but I’m here for it.

Little Amelie (Mailys Vallade and Liane-cho Han, 2025)- an impressive animated debut with some strong spiritual themes from France

The Mother and the Bear (Johnny Ma, 2026)- a love letter to Winnipeg from a Canadian Director that similtaneously functions as an exploration of family relationships.

Resurrection (Bi Gan, 2025)- a Chinese film from the Director of the Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which this film functions as a kind of spiritual sequel to with its visual and deeply poetic and symbolic presence.

Primate (Johannes Roberts, 2026)- it’s exactly what it sells itself as, which is a tightly scripted and paced horror film about a Primate who goes around killing everyone, managing to be a solid middle of the road January entry

Dead Man’s Wire (Gus Van Sant, 2025)- starring Bill Skarsgard, this retro drama is soaked in its 70’s vibe in all the necessary ways, making up for a slightly muted script with its deliciously old school presence

No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook, 2026)- a masterclass in filmmaking from South Korea’s greatest auteur, blending humor and commentary and moral ambiguity with a beautifully scripted story about a family and the socio-economic realities that define the real world struggles they have to manage

The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvld, 2025)- the real life story is perfectly suited for the choice to frame this as a kind of musical, treating the subject matter with the stort of openness and respect and curiousity that allows it to be a genuine exploration of faith and struggle

Mercy (Timur Bekmambetov, 2026)- decent idea, questionable execution leaves this a bit of a middling effort that was worth seeing on the big screen for the ways it utilizes a small budget (it’s creative to that end), but I don’t think it has lasting power beyond that

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Nia DaCosta, 2026)- a follow up to one of my favorite films of 2025 (28 Years Later), and while I think it has some issues on the story front it nevertheless functions as a solid follow up in tone and theme

Shelter (Ric Roman Waugh, 2026)- another January, another Statham film, and I would put this one in the upper tier of his filmmography, as its a no frills, no twists, straight forward thriller that uses that simplicity to make the most of the chemistry between its aging and the young star, whom happens to be the best part about the film

Send Help (Sam Raimi, 2026)- Raimi’s back to doing what he loves, which is having fun going off the rails with some unhinged performances (in this case featuring what I think is a career best performance from McAdams). It misses some opportunities to really land the commentary that’s there for the taking, trading that instead for a few more late game twists, but that’s a small quibble with a film that boasts some memorable moments (and shout out to making one for us Survivor fans out here)

My month started with two hold overs from 2025, the buzzy Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (format: physical book) and the massive tome, Mark Twain by Ron Chernow (format: audiobook). Both books are ones in which I read the majority last year, but finished in the early weeks of January. McConaghy’s patient mystery lived up to expectations, finding a way to use it’s multiple POV’s in service of a linear storyline, its poetic and symbolic presence overcoming a slight identity crisis. It’s a story that begs the question, where do we find hope amidst the wild dark shores of this world.

Chernow on the other hand has managed what I would suggest is the definitive work on Twain and a must read for anyone interested in his life. It is exhaustive, made up of a broad collection of stories which blend together to create a nuanced and intimate picture of a complex life and enigmatic figure. It’s great in audio format, as it functions very much as oral storytelling, immersing the reader in the rhythms of the narrative.

The first book I started in 2026 was Martin Scorsese’s Conversations on Faith (format: physical book), a short 100 pages that boasts an often powerful and substantive window into Scorsese’s relationship to both film and faith. A must read for any fan of the filmmaker.

The first in a series of books I am reading on the importance of story and narrative was Kaitlin B. Curtice’s Everything Is a Story: Reclaiming the Power of Stories to Heal and Shape Our Lives (format: Kobo digital) This one was a bit of a mixed bag. It relies heavily on a working allegory, and if that allegory doesn’t land (for me it didn’t fully land) it ends up undercutting some of the observations the author wants to make. But I did do a lot of highlighting, and there were bits and pieces that I did find profound, beginning with the simple act of seeing everything as a story, and even more importantly recognizing that we are all born into a story that is already unfolding. Equally so it is the world around us that begins telling our story long before we come into awareness of it. I also appreciated the insights Curtice brings to the subject from the vantage point of her indigenous roots and spirituality.

The first fiction novel I read was Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s Before We Forget Kindness (format: physical book) , the next and final book in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. One of two books I read this month featuring time travel and coffee, which is of course is an outstanding fact. As the final book this one does a really nice job of summarizing the journey of all of the characters, which I appreciated. It follows the familiar patterns, and while there’s nothing ground breaking here it has the touching and lovely dynamic that I’ve come to expect.

Leslie Baynes Between Interpretation and Imagination: C.S. Lewis and the Bible continues the welcome and apparent renassaince of renewed interest in Lewis and Tolkien as of late. This one focuses specifically on his relationship to the scriptures, which gives it a unique spin. The highlight by far is the second half of the book which walks through each book from the Narnia series making the argument that it remains his best expositional work. I found it not only incredibly persuasive (you’ll never look at the stories the same way), but enlightening.

I was less taken with Hugo Mendez’s The Gospel of John: A New History (format: Kobo digital) which I found to be full of questionable assumptions regarding the nature of this Gospel, both in its readings and its theories. For Ehrman apologists, of whom he is a student of and shares his views with, I imagine they will go for this like gangbusters. But to me there is so much other scholarship out there doing far better work on the relationship between John’s hellenized elements and its distinct Jewish presence, something Mendez continually ignores.

Wolf, Moon Dog by Thomas Wharton (format: public library): loved the premise, thought it was less effective in its execution. The early moments are good, but once it starts to move through broad sections of history and time it starts to get more and more unfocused as a narrative.

Jesus Changes Everything: A New World Made Possibler by Stanely Hauerwas (format: Kobo digital) is a great introduction to the hard hitting theologian, bringing together short essays that exhibit his unfiltered approach in speaking to what he sees as the demanding but liberating call of the Gospel. Full of great bite size quotes and readily desires to unsettle comfortable positions.

The Wages of Cinema: A Christian Aesthatic of Film in Conversation with Dorothy L. Sayers (format: Kobo digital) by Crystal L. Downing is about Sayers, about the technical art of film, and its about a particular christian aesthatic. Which is to say- it’s about a lot. Do all of these things work as effectively entry points depending on your point of interest? Maybe. For me I am deeply interested in the art of film and its intersection (in dialogue) with the Christian faith. I had only cursary knowledge of Sayers. From that vantage point I enjoyed a lot of it, although I can see where it is probably trying to do too much at the same time.

Sandwhich by Catherine Newman (format: Kindle digital) was my “actively dislike” read of the month. I went in blind, and wish I hadn’t because everything from the structure to the subject matter was not for me. It takes a plotless approach and binds it to superficial characters. Wasn’t a fan.

Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel by David M. Rhoads (format: Kobo digital) was my the first book I finished in tandem with my journey this year through the Gospel according to Mark. A good place to start given my equal interest in narrative. It’s not the strongest work overall, but for anyone interested in reading the Gospel through the lens of story its a helpful treatment of literary style and structure and form. It’s a reminder that the Gospel is a literary construction as much as it is also a Gospel.

The next book I read is one that I really enjoyed, which is the recently released Meet the Newmans by Jennifer Niven (format: Libra audiobook). I loved the nostalgia of its 50’s/60’s Hollywood setting, but what I didn’t expect was how timely the commentary would feel, depicting a film industry in the throes of uncertainty and upheaval. Here the commentary speaks broadly, but it also has an intimate element as well, revolving around a memorable cast of characters and a really effective story structure. The way it centers on two pivotal moments, both essentially defining the arc in its own way on either side of each moment in the story gave it layers and intrigue. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.

The Time Hop Coffee Shop by Phaedra Patrick (format: physical book) was a blind buy, and is the second book featuring time travel (sort of) and coffee. It’s surface level, although the idea is good and elements were endearing. As a whole some of the plot devices didn’t work as well as they needed to fully get me to where I needed to be with the character transofrmations. It id inspire a write up though in conversation with Meet the Newmans, as there is some interesting overlap in themes reagarding nostalgia and the different worlds we occupy.

The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz (format: Libby digital) is a sequel to the great blockbuster The Plot, which I read last year. It’s not quite as strong, with the construction of the plot devices feeling a bit too aware and at times forced, but it still works and it was still entertaining. It’s one I feel could grow in my appreciation over time. I just need to reconcile the slow build of the first half.

The final book I read in January was also my favorite, which is Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery, the first of three books I am planning to read by and about the famed author this year. It was my introduction to Montgomery and I really fell in love with her language, her style, and found great affinity with the character of Emily. I love when a book helps me to feel understood, and in this case very much affirmed in some of my own strange quirks questions and tendencies and passions.

I posted a comment back when I started this book about that euphoric feeling that comes when you discover a like mind and a shared language. Especially when it is a voice that has layed hidden in plain sight for all of these years. Partly, I’m sure, due to the association with Anne of Green Gables, books that I assumed as a young kid were great but wouldn’t be my thing. Emily of New Moon has me second guessing those assumptions, because it turned out I am a big fan of her writing.

Montgomery was put on my radar likely due to a sudden resurgence in interest. Having signed up to Kindle Unlimited for the Christmas season, as I typically do, this was one of the additional books that I happened across in my browsing. This led to me dusting off a copy of The Blue Castle, a $5 classic that has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time without getting read, and planning to delve into one of her biographies. It would be New Moon that would be the starting point of this journey. A story that I would define as a quiet sweeping epic with a pastoral concern. If epic feels misplaced here, I would argue that is only because its more an exercise in character and place than a plot driven spectacle. The book immerses us in Emily’s world, spending the generous page count moving with her through the ebb and flow of time as a young child navigating the stuff of loss and change, school and family, responsibilities and struggles. In terms of plotting, there’s not a whole lot here, so if that feels like it might frustrate you this might not be your thing. What we do get is a subtle movement, which for me even arrived as a kind of surprise, towards an exploration of coming of age against certain obstacles. A youung girl dealt a difficult hand finding ways to manage self doubts and personal passions while figuring out precisely what it means to respond to the systems and powers that afford her a sense of responsbility to the world around her.

This is a young kid with an astute awarness of a world the adults around her seem to have forgotten exists. A world their cynicsm has blinded them to. Emily describes her encounters with this world as “the flash,” that invading presence that disrupts her sense of routine of normalcy and disrupts her imagination. A thing that occupies her love of a walk, her sense of communing with the mysteries of the world around her, of writing and imagining and creating. Montgomery has her describe it this way;

“And for companions she had all the fairies of the countryside- for she could believe in them here- the fairies of the white clover and satin catkins, the little green folk of the grass, the elves of the young fir trees, sprites of win and wild fern and thistledown. Anything migh happen there- everything might come true.” (page 8)

As Emily suggests, to occupy this space is what awakens her need to remember it. “It would hurt her with its beauty until she wrote it down.” (page 8) I felt so much affinity with this sentiment, my mind wandering to many a restless night as a young kid trying to figure out what to do with all of the thoughts rolling around in my head about the world I had encountered. I echo her feelings where “It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside- but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond- only a glimpse- and heard a note of unearthy music… and always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty.”(page 9)

This becomes the foundation of a source of tension that follows Emily throughout her story, her world being upended by tragedy and her life being moved to New Moon. One of the real questions that permeates this movement between spaces is, does that imagination get left behind or does it occupy the wider world of all of our experiences regardless of the space we are occupying in a given moment. In Emily’s experience, she states emphatically, “How very big and empty the world had suddenly become. Nothing was interesting any more.” (page 26) Innocence lost. A fact that moves her to start to question the world the adults around her were handing her, wrestling with how to reconcile the truth of the flash with people’s descriptives of a God as the source of it and the simple, harsh facts about reality that continue to push back. Throughout her journey in the book Emily wrestles with the simple observation that who this God is seems intimately tied to the adults who define it. Hence she finds herself praying to the God of those persons whom she finds most true and most able to speak to the tensions she carries. This is something I also felt a deep resonance with, as to encounter God as a young kid for me was to encounter different conceptions of God whom were as broadly present as the different authors I was reading and encountering and the persons whom were demanding things of me. And yet, as Emily does, I was also intimately aware that something True must exist. The flash needed and demanded explanation. Perhaps this simple concession is how Emily comes to be able to say, “And now in this most unlikely place and time it had come- she had seen, with other eyes than those of sense, the wonderful world behind the veil.” (page31) A statement that doesn’t evoke certainty as much as a deeply felt sense of faith in this idea that the world could still make sense. Or more precisely in her words, “I don’t want to learn sense and be done a world of good to, I want somebody to love me.” This she finds in her father: “Nobody who was loved as much as he was could be a failure.” (page 44) As she declares, “If you knew Father’s God you’d believe in Him.” (page 123) This, it would seem, is how Emily “looked about her on her new environment and found it good,” sustained by this mysterious word love. This is where she comes to discover that she could write, an act that becomes one of her primary expressions throughout the book, in journals and lengthy letters where we get to occupy space in Emily’s mind and point of view as she meanders through all her thoughts in real time.

A moment that brings new opportunities. “Her world had conceded her standing. But now other things had to be thought of. The storm was over and the sun had set…. Life tasted good to her again- tasted like more.” (page 124. 150) Where she can look upon the world and say, “I think God is just like my flash, only it lasts only a second and He lasts always.” (page 170) Where “everything Emily had ever read of dream and myth and legend seemed a part of the charm… She was filled to her finger-tips with a rapture of living.” (page 243) Where the very thoughts she affords her Father begin to trickle back in observations about this finnicky, stubborn resistant and yet authentic and impassioned young girl- “I’ve never seen a creature who seemed so full of sheer joy in existence.” (page 292) But in this comes the tension filled reality of this journey- these words break into an entire world of words stating otherwise. Definding her in other terms. Which brings her to an incredibly important observation: “To love is easy and therefore common- but to understand- how rare it is.” (page 293) This hit me hard, as all my life I have carried this deeply rooted fear about being misunderstood. Here I think Emily opened up a fresh understanding of this fear for me personally. The simple truth that this fear exists because we “can’t believe in fairies” alone. That is the existential crisis. To have this awareness of the world so deeply rooted inside of you, to need to find a way to communicate it preserve it before it gets stolen or lost or forgotten, and to have to do this in a world where this must and can only be done in relationship with others. No matter how much I am aware, my awareness only goes so far as knowing that it can be understood by someone else. And yet we seek to be understood, as Emily puts it, in a world caught up in the same cycle that we find in the story of Adam and Eve, a symbol and a picture that opens the book and closes the book and carries throughout the book. The symbol of these two trees that seem to contain the imposed judgments of others as persons standing between the trees seeking to pull from one or the other. On one side is true belief, on the other cynicism. And part of the awareness here is that to live in this world is for any, for all, to occupy this same space. The revelation here for Emily is this innate human tendency to need to see the other as the one who takes the apple, for as long its them we can imagine it is not us. The irony being that this is precisely how we blind ourselves to the Truth (the awarness of the flash) and bind ourselves to the cynicsm.

There’s a phrase too that comes along with this as Emily at one point is wrestling with the Truth of things. A wrestling that comes with the doubts begin to take over in the face of the reality of life’s struggles. The stuff, as it says, of our histories. “Do you know what makes history? Pain- and shame- and rebellion- and bloodshed and heartache… remember that if there is to be drama in your life somebody must pay the piper in the coin of suffering. If not you- then some one else.” To become aware of this, as the sentiment goes, is to learn to be “content with fewer thrills.” This is part of the journey in this book, of knowing and learning what it is to enter into the gentle rhythms of a life, even as we grow up and, as Emily puts it, “certain doors of life get shut behind us and cannot be reopened.” To still see the world that the flash once revealed, the thing Emily states at the start of the journey that she remembers all her life, that’s what sustains one through the open doors that await.

“After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die,”

Charlottes Web (E.B. White)

One of the earliest memories I have of being captivated by a story is reading Charlottes Web. Like the character in Shyamalan and Spark’s recent collaborative effort Remain, I too found myself being struck by this now infamous line. Not simply becasue it seemed to hold some mysterious and elusive truth regarding the nature of this existence, but because it seemed to tap into an unspoken tension i was already feeling and observing as that young seven year old kid holed up in his room seeing the world through the eyes of these characters amidst the glow of my nightlight.

Which is the question- what is a life anyways.

Or to echo the character in this book, the assumed beauty of this definition also feels to be burdened by a kind of pervading sadness regarding our ability to answer it in terms other than death.

And yet the character in Remain is also aware of what lies beneath this for the timeless story of a spider and a pig. To define “a life” serves to reveal what a life is not. A life is not death. The very essence of the phrase “we live a little while” directs our question towards the thing that death forces us to reconcile- the meaning and nature of a life can only be found in the act of living.

In other words, what E.B. White intuitively understood, which is largely written into the subtext of his narrative (see The Story of Charlotte’s Web: E B White’s Eccentric Life In Nature And Birth Of An American Classic by Michael Sims), is that life and death are not the same thing. They reflect opposing narratives. Which is what awakens Wren, the character in Remain, to note the tension. To live a little while is not to die, it is for existence to “be” in the first place. More than this, it is about what we can rationally and logically say about the nature of a life in light of this antithetial thing called death (and it’s logical implication, a birth).

My very first post 10 years ago in my personal blog space was about Charlottes Web. Encountering this blurb in Remain, particularly as I am now tumbling towards 50, brought this formative story back to mind in a visceral way. I have not yet finished Remain, but in this moment I found the simple observation to be a powerful one. As it would be for Charlotte and Wilbur, the truth is found in the phrase “we live a little while.” The question that breaks in to this equation is simply this- what truth does this thing called a life point towards and reveal. On what grounds can we define what it means to live in ways that actually lliberate us from the defining powers of death.

If I could go back and speak to my 7 year old self, I’d tell him to anticipate 43 years of continuing to wrestle with this question, even in the darkest of places, yet never without glimpses of hope.

“The way a story begins is important…. the stories we believe about who we are and where we come from shape our worldview and the way we see ourselves and value others.” (page 43, Redeeming Eden: How Women in the Bible Advance the Story of Salvation)

Barely one month in and the beginning of the story of my reading year in 2026 is taking me to some interesting and unexpected places. While I started off in the Gospel according to Mark, the Gospel that my Church is working through this year and which I am complimenting with James R. Edwards Pillar New Testament Series commentary, it is the Gospel according to John that keeps muscling its way into the conversation. Beginning with Between Interpretation and Imagination: C.S. Lewis and the Bible, where Leslie Baynes‘ express interest in the ways Lewis saw and used the scriptures emphasizes his particular obsession with the Gospel according to John. As Baynes points out, it is his understanding of this Gospel that ultimately leads to specific tensions, giving us an inroad to both his points of weakness (interpretation applied without imagination) and strengths (imagination applied to interpretation) when it comes to the role of the scriptures in his larger body of work.

It’s an excellent book, especially in the latter half where the author walks through each entry in the Narnia series, the place where she believes Lewis was at his most astute and profound when it came to his application of the scriptures within his imaginative work. That’s worth the price of the book alone. What I didn’t expect is that it would end up being an inroad into Hugo Mendez’s new buzzy book, The Gospel of John: A New History. A book that’s becomming all the rage right now in certain scholarly circles. It’s a book that follows in the footsteps of Bart Ehrman, largely transplanting Ehrman’s specific take on Paul as gnostic writer and thinker immersed in Greco-Roman ideas of secret knowledge attained through special access to the spirit on to fresh observations about the Gospel according to John as a single author composition reflecting the voice of its creator working to invent a false pseudonym (the beloved disciple) as a means of advancing what would become known as the “Johannine” tradition. In other words, Mendez approaches the Gospel according to John by imagining it being unearthed today as a long lost Gospel in the same manner that happened with the Nag Hammadi library, likewise assuming the same soil that Ehrman believes gave us Paul’s writings as well. Does cutting through the noise of centuries of tradition surrounding John uncover some simple truths about the nature and shape of its composition in line with these gnostic texts? Mendez says yes. He believes John bears all the shared markings of such a gnostic text.

Full disclosure- I take a lot of issues with Mendez’s working theory. First, in suggesting that his work looks to strip away the obstacle of centuries of tradition so as to be able to see the Gospel through a more objective lens, he completely buries the fact that he is imposing the lens of his own specific tradition, one anchored in the assumptions Ehrman makes regarding Paul. The story Ehrman tells about Paul shapes how one sees everything else, and as Mendez suggests at one point, he wanted to write a book on the Gospel according to John for this specific circle (my emphasis) of Pauline scholarship. There is however a glaring issue here- if one disagrees with Ehrman’s interpretation of Paul and his writings, as I largely do, successive arguments shaped by these assumptions become challenged as well.

Perhaps the more interesting question then, for a reader like me, is to ask whether Mendez’s successive theory regarding John supports or challenges Ehrman’s assumptions about Paul. That becomes the important starting point. This is what I found occupying my mind as I read through his new theory on the authorship and composition of the fourth Gospel. What I found ultimately unconvincing here was Mendez’s express efforts to isolate and reduce John to its hellenized langauge. Not unlike what Ehrman does with Paul, Mendez reads the Gospel of John as though its completely detached from its second temple Jewish roots, which of course is easy to do when you punt it entirely to a much later world and context. In fact, he largely handwaves entire swaths of the current scholarship out of the picture, labeling anything that disagrees with his working assumptions “evangelical,” thus completely ignoring one of the key facets of that present conversation, which is uncovering and recovering what scholars are recognizing as a deeply rooted Jewish concern in John’s Gospel reflective of that second temple context. This is the key quality and nature of the Gospel according to John that expressly challenges Mendez’s particular readings of the text as reflecting an internal soteriology of secret knowledge being obtained by an inner transformation by way of an exclusive access to the spirit (a key motif and marker of the gnostic traditions). What Mendez fails to consider are the ways in which John is using Hellenized language and symbols to expressly critique this Greco-Roman way of thinking with his specific Jewish (or Judean) concerns, concerns that bring these conceptions of heaven and earth together, not splitting them apart (as Ehrman popularly assumes Paul does in his shared context).

Saying all of this, while I certainly feel more qualified to express thoughts and opinions regarding the Gospel according to John (full cards on the table, I hold to a view that contrasts with Mendez’s operative theory by seeing it as a product of a community shaped over successive generations and reflecting three disctinct periods in time, something we can see in the overall structure of the Gospel itself- three distinct and visible editing phases reflecting different voices but, by its nature, anchored in a source tradition), I felt far less qualified to speak on the Gnostic Traditions themselves. Beyond Pagels (The Gnostic Gospels) and King (What is Gnosticism), I haven’t really delved deeply into the subject, and both of those above sources tend to be bound to a specific lens (not unlike Ehrman). Thus, if I could note why I disagree with Mendez’s specific interpretations regarding the text and composition history of John, I couldn’t say with the same degree of awareness how and why the Gnostic Gospels themselves should be made or kept distinctly seperate from that Gospel beyond appealing to easy rhetorical marks. Which led me to ask some of my online comnunities for recommendations on the Gnostic Gospels. Thus far I have David Litwa (The Gnostic Archive), Yamauchi’s Pre-Christian Gnosticism, and a class called Early Church History: Gnostic and Valentininans (available in podcast form through the Early Church History podcast).

While I was putting those together, I also started (and have almost finished) the book The Girl Who Baptized Herself: How a Lost Scripture About a Saint Named Thecla Reveals the Power of Knowing Our Worth by Meggan Watterson. A book which is all about reclaiming the Gnostic and extant writings as revelatory works over and against a history of canonization led by a very real patriarchy which has taught us to fear and exclude them. The inroad to this conversation is the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, a letter (or book) which remains in the conversation within Eastern Traditions as a vital part of this larger portrait of the world of the N.T. and its vision regarding specific customs and views of women in the ANE.

There’s actually a lot that I agree with regarding Watterson’s essential plea, which is to let go of the tightly guarded restraints of the patriarchal systems that has handed us a canon disavowing such extant writings, and subsequently a scripture that could be more controlled and abused by said patriarchy under the guise of the divinely inspired “inerrant” word that singular interpretations could dictate and enforce (read: western christianity). It should not be the case that the scriptures represent some kind of closed book where all extant conversations and dialogues are no longer able to enter in. And if Watterson is correct, there should be no reason to be fearful of engaging Gnostic and extant and apocryphal texts as part of our engagment with that larger conversation. What makes the scriptures powerful and inspired and sacred is the way it invites us into that larger and ongoing conversation rooted in a singular confession- the resurrected Jesus. That we are able to find disagreements and disputes within the pages of scripture regarding how this plays itself out in different contexts, which reveal the multi-faceted world of its writers, should make this all the more real not challenged. And certainly the Gnostic Traditions are good and important windows into the different responses that we see shaping the second century world.

But I will say, I take a slightly different path than Watterson towards some shared conclusions. A path I was struggling to fully clarify until I started reading Redeeming Eden: How Women in the Bible Advance the Story of Salvation by Ingrid Faro. Where Watterson tends to get weighted down (in my opinion) by her own express interests in tackling the very real issue of patriarchy, often conflating particular cultural readings and realities with the world of the scriptures themselves (even her “history” of canonization ends up being fairly reductive to this end, wrongly misappropriating the process as a singular aim of the patriarchy, which is not really true), Faro is expressing similar concerns but with an express interest in cutting through the noise of cultural impostions and getting at the world of the scriptures themselves (in her case, the text of Genesis). And in a very real way this brought me full circle back to the book Between Interpretation and Imagination, ironically a book that is all about one of the great historical voices of our modern age writing on the relationship between myth and Christianity (whom famously came to see Christianity as the true myth that made sense of all the world’s stories).

If Watterson’s approach I think erronously leads her to see the revelatory work as a gnostic practice of embracing inner truth and transformation by way of elevating the power of the self, something that I find leaves her sailing on the real and important waters of her subject matter without much of an anchor, and likewise continually leads her to find the liberative power of Thecla’s story as an act of individualization and an elevation of the self or self-made truth (which detaches her from all of the oppressive forces around her, in this line of thinking, robbing her of a truly self made identity), Faro reminded me of the freedom that comes from fiunding our imagination through the act of interpreation that seeks the source of our identy. Right from the get go her book takes a decicidely different turn, where instead of elevating a conception of the self or the individual suggests that the self can only be known when we know the true nature of God. And for Christians that is all about the story that we find Jesus embodying within the world (and pages) of the scriptures. Which I think will be a good fit for a recently announced upcoming release from one of the most formative authors in my life- God’s Homecoming: The Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal- Biblical Theology from Genesis to Revelation on the New Creation by N.T. Wright.

This is where I find myself in this moment, looking ahead to February, and not inconsequently looking forward to another notable upcoming releases by a hugely formative author for me personally- Paul and John in Harmony: A Theological and Historical Exploration by Michael J. Gorman. It’s almost like he knew this would be the book I would be needing right now in the early months of 2026.

Or to wade into the world of potential cliche and yet somehow still true, “… in the beginning (of the story), God had a plan.” (page 42, Redeeming Eden)

A couple things that have really been sticking with me from Faro’s book:

• She brings us into one of the most studied and looked upon and scrutinized portions of the scriptures (Genesis 1-3) by imagining (in conversation with a robust interpretation of the text) Adam and Eve emerging within an already unfolding story (which is the essential thesis of Kaitlin Curtices Everything Is a Story, another book I finished this month and which suggests all of us are born into a story already in play). A story which, in express critique of the surrounding ANE conceptions of a God in conflict with creation, finds God both acting for and dwelling within the created order and creative practice. An unfolding story that finds the particular story of Adam (humanity) and Eve (the living one, or the breathing one) being awakened in their emergence (birthing) on the scene to a pre-existing cosmic divide. Thus what we find in the narrative of the garden is the story of humanity being tasked to guard God’s good creation from this division precisely by imaging (closely related to imaginging) the true nature of God to creation rather than imaging the lie (the serpent). Rather than the trees reflecting a test that brings about the conflict they instead represent a means for humanity to partner with God in guarding creation in the midst of a pre-existing conflict between the spiritual Powers. As she notes, in ancient myths, “after an idol was formed it was taken to a garden or by a stream to complete a vivification process to bring life into the world… when the mouth and the eyes of the statue were opened, it would be inhabited by a spiritual entity, making it a god.” Thus we find one of the key distinctives of the Genesis narrative among a world of creation myths- rather than image bearers being contained to deified rulers, the Judeo-Christian narrative sees all of humanity as image beaerers intended to reflect the true name or nature of God to a world enslaved to those spiritual Powers. To have their eyes open upon eating the fruit is to align themselves with the image of Empire. Idol or image in relationship to human is a word only used positively in this context- all others are attached to idolatry.
• With this as the backdrop for the story, she helps us to see how the seven day framework is a literary device denoting sacred space and sacred time around which a temple is constructed. The creation story “is a temple inauguration.” (page 48) And this is what really had my attention turned. In this temple text, the human (man and woman) are to serve together and protect the garden as sacred space, a place where God could abide with creation- this evokes the idea of being alert to the story that they have entered into, and thus are now emobyding, where spiritual forces have already rebelled against God. Ezer (helper) is a word that everywhere else evokes a military conotation- to guard against. But the imagery here gets blown even more wide open over and against much of our cultural constructs when we recognize what it means for the woman to be birthed from the side of Adam. Tsela (which sometimes is side or rib in translations) is always a special architectural term relating to the sides (walls) of sacred spaces (temples)- the sides must be able to bear the weight together to guard and protect the sanctuary. Here then we have the proper portrait that evokes of “all” humanity imaging the true nature of God over and against the divisions of the Powers that seek to distort what creation is through the deification of the individual, a central facet of Empire, Equally so the way the story gets rewritten to have modern man standing over and above the woman. Or in a more literary sense, to imagine a temple space (creation) where humanity is set against its life source (the unifying nature of God) is to bring us to the idol rather than the revealed God. To be bound to the curse, which is given to the de-creating nature of the spiritual Powers not God’s act of creation, rather than the promise, which is given to creation, is to be left with a story of exile rather than new creation.
• This is something which comes truly aware and alive when we consider how Seth, the seed that comes to reflect the promise of new creation, means “annointed one,” while Seth’s son (Enosh) means “mortal one”. God’s redemptive and restorative work breaking into the mortal human presence in a world enslaved to the Powers of Sin and Death. an act which has a fascinating interplay with the shared word for “universe” and “hide” an act that we find first in Adam and Eve (hiding in the garden) and then parlayed on to God whom is now breaking into the world outside of the garden as a way of occupying this promised and concieved marriage of Heaven and Earth in a world divided- what is hidden is being made known.
• Something which comes even more alive yet when we consider the intentional connections between words which all become a literary interplay between the word “build”: the building of humanity leads to the building of a son leads to the building of a city leads to the building of a temple (tower). As Faro writes, “The creative process involves envisioning something that inspires actions to create something new (page 43).” Meaning, humanity is meant to particpate in the act of “creating.” At the heart of the problem in Genesis 13 is precisely the question of which image we are creating (building) in, or what these creative acts are imaging and what reality it is naming. Or more to the point- what story is this act of building telling regarding the true nature of God, and thus the true nature of creation. As Faro writes, “The God who concieves (also) speaks, and his thoughts become reality.” So it is with us as we are called to participate in this creative process, yet the question for us remains: do our thoughts conceive the reality of a God who is for the world, for creation or against it. This story matters to the way we see the world and value others.

There are two direct parallels called to mind in Mark 2:13-17, a story that describes Jesus walking along the sea of Galilee, encountering a crowd, singling out an individual, and being called out for those whom he is associating with and for his words/actions reflecting an offence in light of Torah faithfulness.

The first call back is in fact the section that just precedes this in 2: 1-12. We just finished reading in 2:2 a story defined by the crowd “gathering” around Jesus. Once again we are in a story where the crowd is “gathering” around Jesus (2:13). This is then interrupted by the arrival of an extant or outside individual. In the case of 2:1-12 it was the paralyzed man. In the case of 2:13-17 it is Levi son of Alphaeus. In both cases the scandal revolves around association with what is called sinners, an act which would have left a Torah faithful adherent unclean simply by coming into contact.

What is equally curious here is to recognize how the term sinner is being applied in these cases. For the paralytic, sin and sickness are intertwined. In the case of Levi, sin and tax collecting were intertwined. Which should indicate that however we make our way into this discussion about sin it is likely that our defintion needs to be broadened. To make sense of why this categorical defintion of “sinner” matters in these stories we need to step outside the narrow paramaters of “moral action.”

This first parallel is also found in Jesus’ response to the scribes (2:16) asking “why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners.” Jesus says in verse 17, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” In the previous story we heard Jesus respond to the scibes concerns by saying, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say stand up and take your mat and walk?” Once again, the line blurs when it comes to this word “sinners,” with our attention immediately conjuring up this portrait of a literal sick man (a paralyitic) being healed of his sickness. And yet here this same conceptualization is applied to the tax collectors.

The second parallel reaches back to 1:16-20. In verse 16 Jesus is passing along the Sea of Galilee and says to the fishermen, come follow me. Here in verses 13-14 he once again is walking along the sea of Galilee, encounters a tax collector and invites him to come “follow me.” Whereas the teaching of the crowd precedes this in 13-17, the teaching of the crowd follows this encounter in 1:21. But here is the real striking part of this parallel. In Mark 1:23-24 it is “an unclean spirit” that opposes Jesus. In chapter 2, both of the parallel stories are dealing with Jesus’ association with “the unclean” while the scribes are the ones opposing Jesus. In the case of the unclean spirit, it knows who Jesus is which sparks a response declaring “have you come to destroy us?”

This raises an interesting question. If Mark wants us as readers to associate the scribes with this portrait of the unclean spirit being cast out, what precisely is this association looking to do and say in the context of this Gospel? This is simply my own reflections, but I found that stated concern of the unclean spirit that Jesus has come to destroy them a possible entry point into exploring that question. The unclean spirits is obviously speaking on a cosmic level, and yet somehow this seems to trickle down into the unspoken fears of the scribes. And it makes sense. The backdrop of the world Jesus has entered into is both Roman occupation and rule (read: the power of Empire) and a persisting exile. Torah faithfulness in this regard isn’t a matter of individual salvation built on legalism, as in people seeking to do good and thus be accepted (Edwards unfortunately straddles a line here in perpetuating this falsehood in his commentary). Rather, its concerns reach much broader. Here Torah faithfulness is directly attached to Torah fulfilment. What’s on the line is the promise of new creation itself. Torah faithfulness is not simply a question of some necessary action that brings about God’s work, nor is it simply about being left out of God’s anticipated work, it’s about whether this hope can be made known at all against the backdrop of Empire and its idols. Edwards does not a nice job in his commentary of outlining why “tax collectors” would be indicative of a marriage to Empire and thus become the subject of such opposition. This also has the ability to create the appropriate level of empathy for the position and concerns of the scribes. In some sense, when seen through the lens of Torah, to locate Torah faithfunless within association with “uncleaness” is to reiterate the terms of exile and the Roman Empire. The concern here could be palpable- have you come to destory us (yes in the case of the unclean spirits and Empire, known as the enslaving Powers) or to liberate us by fulfilling the Torah (yes, in the case of the scribes concern). It’s just a question of how this happens in the person and work of Jesus. This fits with the simple observation that in saying Jesus came not for the righteous for the sick is not framed as an invitation to  the scribes as “the sick,” but rather is redirecting the narrative towards the markings of the fulfilliment. In Jewish terms this is indicative of the expected answer to the problem of exile (the return from exile which inaugerates the kingdom of God) which marks the movement of the then inaugerated Kingdom of God into the whole of the world. The distinction being made is always about whether we can find this inaugeration in Jesus or not, and that distinction is always framed against which words are bound to which story- the story of God or the story of the Powers. Which is precisely why the identity of Jesus matters to Mark.

I don’t think the association here in Mark between the unclean spirits and the scribes is to make them synonymous. Rather it is to redirect the concern towards the inaugerating shape of the kingdom of God having arrived among them. In his commentary, James R. Edwards notes the obvious distinction between the fact that the scribes followed Jesus to the home where he ultimately reclines with these sinners, and yet Mark never uses the word “follow” in Jesus’ own words for those who oppose him. Rather it is used exclusively for those whom he calls. And it is this calling that over and over again becomes the means of revealing the how of this fulfilment in the scope of this “good news” proclomation. Here “sinners” reaches far beyond moral action and towards the larger narrative, which begins with the cosmic and moves into the particulars. It has to do with the state of things, not doing good or doing bad. Here righteousness reflects fulfillment not moral upstanding or works, and sinner is clearly associated with enslavement to the Powers who’s markings are Sin and Death and all of its association.

One last observation. In my previous thoughts on Mark 2:1-12 in this space I noted the parallel between the place of Jesus’ teaching in Mark 1 (the synagogue) and the house in Mark 2. This is clear temple imagery being evoked. This is once again made aware in Mark 2:13-17, and it will be accented by what follows in 2:18-28. The word for sitting that Mark uses for picturing Jesus in the home at the table is the word for “reclining.” Why does this matter? As Edwards notes, this word evokes who the host is. Jesus is in Levi’s home but he is presented as the host. This is thus painted once again as a temple, which Mark is about to break open as a portrait of the great anticipated wedding banquet or feast. And once again, this portrait is calling up that imagery of the temple with the inside dwelling place and the outer courts. And what this is indicative of is a picture of a purified space, which is what happens in entering the inner room. The forgiveness of sins becomes synonymous with that purifying act, the actual removing of the pollution of Sin and Death. Thus this isn’t a dismantling of some kind of Torah led legalism, it is actually the reconstituting of the Torah as a story of fulfillment in Jesus. The concerns for idolatry and exile fade away in this portrait of Jesus reclining at the table with “sinners” precisely because the space they are occupying has been transformed by Jesus. Here the enslaving Powers of Sin and Death have been destroyed. That’s the imagination I think Mark is conjuring up here.

(I’ve been gradually trying to force myself to get some of my project into a space where it can hold me accountable to doing something with it. I finished what I would call a rough draft of “my story” last year. So now I’ve been putting the very rough version in pieces in this space where it can continue to wrestle with it. This is another excerpt).

Glimpses of the invisible world. Seeing through the frosted window

This is how I describe attempts to recover the selective nature of my earliest memories. It is peer into the increasinbly  distanced, unfamiliar world that remains ever so evasive even as it remains somehow intimately familiar. Like crossing into that liminal space where the faintness of these memories becomes embodied by a narrative that appeasr to have been writing itself this whole time and which I am only now becoming aware. To tell ones story demands stepping into this space and not just treading carefully, but learning how to trust it.

The most fleeting of these memories remain the ones hardest to give myself over to completely, and  yet to question their validity is to also recognize their prevalance. I am reminded of a commentary on C.S. Lewis (Between Interpretation and Imagintion: C.S. Lewis and the Bible by Leslie Baynes) where Lewis’ obsession with the idea of Joy reveals that it is not the static details of our memory that matter, but the retaining of our experience of this moment that rings most true.

So perhaps this exercise of remembering the past is more a permission. A permission to trust that these memories which seem to hold my life in it’s ever so allusive hands do have the power to say something true about what reality is, about who I am, about my story and how it connects to the larger story of this world.

A particularly poignant and vivid memory that remains ingrained in my mind, perhaps the first that I can genuinely recall in such a form, evoking a world of 70’s era vinyl floors, floral wallpaper, and sitting around the old style kitchen booth with my bothers in our matching onesies with the then ukrainian north end neighborhood in the just beginning to blossom city of Winnipeg our outdoor playground.

It was a notable cloudy morning in a city known for its sun, and my younger brother and I were heading to school, my older brother already two steps removed from the equation having disappeared to that strange, bigger than life and somewhat haunting school down the road. This was a time when riding in the back of the station wagon without seat belts was normalized practice. My brother in pre-school, myself in grade 1, he was especially proud to be bringing his brand new hoola hoop to show off to the rest of the class. Nestled in the backwards back seat watching the world pass us by in reverse, this was an age of innocence and anticipation.

And of course the hoola hoop needed its own seat when the wagon has 2 more to spare.

As we both hopped out of the back and gave the obligatory wave goodbye to that old wagon, standing at the edge of the schoolyard as it turned back on to the main road, I can remember hearing the beginnings of the initially quiet and gradually elevating sobbing before I saw it. I turned around to see him looking back at that wagon as it started to pull off, tears filling his eyes- he had forgotten his hoola hoop in the middle seat.

Yes, I can still visualize this moment as though I’m standing there. I can feel the slight coolness of the early morning, the grey notes the clouds were casting on the grounds, the red brick of the old school walls. I can also say with a fair degree of confidence that this is the first time I remember feeling this kind of pain. That old familiar emotion- heartbreak. A moment that one might call a loss of innocence.

The only thing I could think of in this moment was to try and chase down that old wagon and somehow get it back. I tried, but this would prove to be of no avail. It was already gone. I was not fast enough. So I grabbed my sobbing brother and we walked towards the school. Perhaps a bit unbeknowst to me at the time, the feelings of this moment became rooted in this singular revelation that has seemed to stick with me ever since: reality had failed him. I wanted- check that, I wanted to be able to fix things in this moment. And I couldn’t. I felt, in a phrase, betrayed along with him, uncertain of how to reconcile this with the world which, up until then, had felt ordered and right.

If this seems a bit much to accept from a 7 year old kid, as though I’m overplaying a moment all these years later with unnecessary drama, it nevertheless is something that would come to define me. Or at least my awarness of how my brain works. For as small and ordinary as this experience was, it was equally a moment that set in play a lifelong wrestling with such tensions. How do I make sense of this world? How do I make sense of our place in it? How do I reconcile these seeming restless desires for rightness in a world that consistantly casts things into disarray?

How do I find my story within that.

All these years later and I’m not sure I’m any closer to an answer. I do, however, have perhaps a bit more clarity on what that struggle is and why it matters.

Bi Gan’s latest creative venture once again finds the visionary director playing with the subject of perspective, seeing through the lens of this liminal space between dream or illusion and reality. If Long Day’s Journey Into Night reflected on how these transparent spaces translate to cinematic storytelliing and its relationship to form, this film takes that idea and blows it wide open. I wrote in my review for Long Day’s Journey that the film, in all its abstractness, is woven around this clear sense of a gradual and persistant movement, one that is captured in this progression through the uncertain spaces in time where things are never quite right but where there is hope of finding something complete. Something real. Something transformed. And more than simply telling a story, it invites the viewer in as a subject to be part of it.

Those same themes and ideas and processes and approaches are applied here, this time given an apocalytpic proportion. Where it becomes about even one of those ideas, it similtaneously finds a way to be about all of those ideas at the same time.

In Resurrection the journey is framed by the films structure, told as it is in six parts, each revolving around a different sense (beginning with vision and ending with mind, moving through sound, taste, smell and touch). Each part is set in a particular section of Chinese film history, beginning with the silent film era and moving through to modern expressionism. Here it is as much the story of cinema, seen through the lens of the Chinese cultural imprint, as it is the story of this enigmatic figure whom dies and rises as someone new in each period (all played by the same person within the film). In fact, one of the most signficant factors of Gan’s film is the way cinema becomes a character in and of itself. Resurrection is, in a very real way, telling the story of the dying and rising form through the ages, leaving us with a very real existential question in the wake of its final composition- what do we do when cinema dies? What does cinema itself do? Will it always be resurrected?

Could there be a more timely question for the present state of the American industry, something that many of us are feeling north of the border as well where we struggle to regain a focus on our own regulations and vision for the arts and this specific form? It feels like this could be necessary viewing for anyone looking to recover some sense of what that is in a world where the artform is gradually being reduced to a war of content and politics.

Gan leaves an unsettled and largly haunting sense of potential paths or futures lingering in the backdrop of the films historical narrative, but this isn’t devoid of hope. This isn’t hyperbolic doom scrolling through the inevitable collapse of all things. It’s also not being told through an american lens, thus it is bringing its own set of questions to the table regarding its examination of this universal language. In some sense it wants the liminal space it is creating, between what we hope for and what is in a world that is hard and where suffering is ever present and where death appears to have a final word on beauty, to bleed out into the functional questions of our own lives. If we are trying to locate where this character called cinema is in the course of this film, to make sense of its arc through the history the film is telling, we are, in a very real sense, looking to locate ourselves as well. As silent film in all of its potential starts to disintegrate in front of our eyes, giving way to the technology that drives the form forward into a new era of film theory, where do we root ourselves? Where does the truth persist outside of this aimless thing we might call “progress?” What is this thing called cinema and what language does it speak? Is it still, as it was born into this world as, a visual form? Can we detach it from the embodiment that we as viewers give it in relationship to the “experience” of the artistic creation? Some of the most startling images here involve the disintegration of that embodied form. The erosion of that interconnectedness.

It’s a fundamental question regarding the nature of cinema, and given that the history of the modern world follows this history, it raises fundamental questions regarding the nature of modernism and film. Where the film really digs in is seeing both of these things as affectijng our understanding of the nature of our own humanity. All of these things get intertwined. The death of cinema is always the death of ourselves. The question thus posed is one that can only get told through the act of mythtelling. Or it’s more accurate phrasing, Truth-Telling.

What Truth is underlying modernism? An age where the line between technology and experience is not only getting blurred, but reconstituted as a disembodied form- where we become products of progress. Wherein do we locate the form, the art, that becomes the question when it comes to telling a different narrative. And if Gan is emblemetic of the forms power to transform, regardless of the grip modernism holds, this is a celebration of that marriage between form and experience, the very thing that gives us the capacity to know anything at all. And one of the things that historical memory can awaken, in this case through the history of cinema, is that the way forward through such history is always through the necessary embodiment that connects form and experience to place. That’s the real magic trick here, something that sneaks its way through the overarching narrative and hits so powerfully in that final sequence- that while we are watching the story of cinema unfold, we are in fact watching our own story unfold. It’s one of the most startling meta-elements I’ve seen captured in a long time, where we see cinema looking at the world looking at the cinema has created on screen, and suddenly we realize that this character named cinema is interpreting us, sitting there watching this film. That’s the real power of the films lingering questions.

I’m always a bit cautious when it comes to giving too much weight to surveys. Why? Because I have participated in them myself. I’m not even sure how much I trust myself to answer the questions in a reliable or relevant fashion. I’m also very aware that no single survey can say much on its own. Which is why serious researchers look at a cross section of data over time and using different methods and look at a wide cross section of cultures and contexts when they study any given trend.

But one can still accept that they are able to say something of interest, enough so to merit noted discussion. This past week one such survey made the headlines, funded by Thriftbooks and available through Talker Research using a process verfied through the Transparency Initiative through the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).

The central focus of the survey was gauging peoples awareness of and feelings about the time they spend online. If you look through the quesitons (35 of them if I am correct), they are intentionally drawing a distinctive between analogue and digital choices, framing it in multiple choice options that seek to gain some sense of the ways those surveyed tend to see their realtionship to the online world.

The clickbait headlines are quite clear about what we are supposed to see as the most shocking takeaway- Gen Z is leading the way in unplugging. Now, I suspect there could be a larger historical trend at play here. It at least seems to be true to say that every younger generation leads the way in rejecting the world they’ve been handed. I have to think this plays a role.

Likewise, survey’s like this, particularly when it comes to younger voices, do get tricky as those younger voices are far more prone to following trends and adopting rhetoric than the more established lives of those who are older. Thus it probably shouldn’t be as shocking or suprsing as it looks to record the answers that they got.

Further, it would also be true too to say that the older the cross section gets (in this case it is 2000 responses being divided up) the more likely it is that people have already made this choice (in a generalizing sense, not a totalizing sense). Thus they are far less likely to be saying they need to do this (disconnect).

And as it is with anything and everything, the shape of generations/persons and the shape of society/culture are interconnected in ways that cannot reduce the conversation to matters of mere choice. Given all of this I think its reasonable to use caution when rushing to label any generation, and these headlines seem to indicate more of a predisposed need to justify Gen Z against conceptions that they are often looked down upon.

What I do think such conversations can open up though is thinking about matters of agency, which is very different from tendencies to use character and actions as a measure for what deems a generation good or bad. On that front, there are a couple interesting things to pull from it in my mind. And to be clear, this information is reflective of the whole, not just Gen Z.

First are the three key words that define the why or the percieved motivation for this desire to disconnect from the online world: productive, present, aware. If you look at the questions these words are intentional laden into the direction one can choose. So again, not surprising that people would be picking the words that would give a positive perception rather than a negative one. But they are strong words none the less, and if nothing else indicate that they have been put into the conversation by anyone filling the survey out. Questions I might have:

• Is the value more production? In what way do they perceive being productive? 
• in what ways are they being present with other people? To what end are they actually doing so without their phones?
• Does acknowledging or checking off a feeling lead to awareness? How might they articulate and define the problem?

The second thought would be the thing I might say I am most interested in, as trends do have an impact on culture, what the present cultural imprint or cultural voice tells us. According to the survey, of all the things people are gravitating towards notebooks and books are leading the way, with paper calendars and board games close behind. In other words, reverting to manual and physical ways of doing life and work.

It does seem that we are seeing a positive trend in the book selling world once you dig behind those statistics (important to note this doesn’t necessarily translate uniformly to an increase in sales, but rather visible shfits in specific areas, which I think is what we see in things like the previous years success of the romantisy genre, and even this years shift towards shorter books).

In maybe the most pointed statement, 77 percent stated that the older they get the more they are becoming aware about the importance of spending time in the real world. There could be all sorts of influencing factors at play here, one of the most obvious and prominant being people’s fears and anxieties over the age of AI. What is real and what is not has become a distinguishing part of the modern rhetoric (a far cry from the post modern age of my young adulthood).

Here I will add a couple of my own notes as well coming back to the suggested “shocking headline” regarding Gen Z leading the way with the highest percentages of those disconnecting. First, what would be interesting to me is understanding the relationship between people’s feelings about being online and the present face of big corporations that so much of the online world is attached to (Amazon, Google, Netflix, Apple, Facebook, ect).

It’s been well documented for a while now how Gen Z has grown up without the institutions that Gen X deconstructed and worked to dismantle. The language of institution simply isn’t part of the rhetoric in the same way that it once was. This applies to government systems as much as it does to business/corporations and the church. In my experience (so take that for what it is), when I talk to someone from the Gen Z generation or even younger (which is generally intersecting with our son, his friends, the youth at our church, the students at the school in which I work), they have very little sense of what belongs on the left and what belongs on the right. They don’t really use that language.

They do seem to have a sense of what they are experiencing, again in my lone opinion formulated from my experience, but by and large I find they don’t filter that through the systems and its rhetoric that older generations do. Instead they speak the language of influencers. Which for me has been a really interesting dynamic to dissect and explore, especially when it comes to speaking across what is a cross-cultural reality, across the language of our very different symbols.

In fact, in my honest interactions I find myself constantly surprised by some of the views I see them accepting and endorsing and some of the directions I see their philosophies taking them on a number of levels. They don’t question spirituality in the same way my generation did. AT the same time they aren’t really familiar with the church. They don’t realy know political colours. They belong to some of the first generations that have little to no connection with people involved in the past world wars. Their world has been shaped more narrowly by specific events, such 9/11 and Covid. They have largely grown up outside of family structures in educational systems where authority figures are generally non-existent. The scope of influencers aren’t so much polarizing within their antithetical opinions as returning us to an age of cult like fanaticism. The globalized world has in fact shrunk the world they occupy in some strange ways (for someone of my generation). A generation that would be seeking physical, shared spaces in an environment that has made the idea of the storefront obsolete.

I have often remarked, sometimes it feels like I’m talking to a generation that has somehow reverted to the era of my grandparents, simply without the same recognition of institutional awareness or backdrop of war. Thus, I might describe it as a very disordered version of what I hold in my memory of growing up looking across the table at those same figures.

An additional note on this front. I don’t know how much this is in the consciousness of Gen Z, but I do know it is very present for Gen X, and that is seeing an intentional shift in certain areas relating to how we engage culture, such as getting rid of kindles and switching to Kobo, a company that has made a name for itsself as the anti-Amazon brand and who supports the authors and the art (and thus is for the reader). Or doing away with audible in favour of Libro.fm, an audiobook platform that directly supports independent bookstores, that ensures you own the ebook you’ve bought, and gives money directly to the authors. We see this as well in areas such as travel, sadly in ways where the entire industry of travel has been challenging businesses in the same way that spotify has challenged musicians.

Now, this is simply a theory, but I wonder if Gen Z has the same awareness of what these kinds of shifts represent. It’s more likely that they never got in on the audible or kindle craze to begin with, as they have grown up with tiktok, youtube and netflix, two companies that have taught entire generations to see art as this singular thing called content you don’t invest in, rather its something you just consume. It’s not that they are unaware that movies exist (hello Minecraft), its that such things are not viewed as indistinguishable from antyhing else. It’s simply part of a whole. It’s not that music doesn’t exist, its that the album not a comprehensible concept, and certainly paying for any of this stuff would be completely foreign.

Thus, the importance of something like Kobo or Libro wouldn’t translate in the same way. Nor would the notion of seeing something like the movie theater as an important part of that “disconnecting.” What I seem to be picking up on in this survey is more an act of comparmentalizing, at least where it concerns the ways in which Gen Z might be answering these questions in the same way but with very different understandings of what it means. Thus it makes sense why they would pick up a physical book, or go outside, or write in a notebook. This is the avaialable analogue option that directly contrasts with the perception of the digital. Kobo? Libro? Movie theaters? These things wouldn’t provide that contrast while they certaintly do for those in my generation.

Equally so when I subscribe to something like Mubi and disconnect from Netflix, for example. Why? Because I am of the generation who’s primary act of rebellion was going after institutions. That’s what we did. Thus that is what it means to disconnect. We battle against the Amazons and the Netflix’s of the world, the monopolizing enttities driven by billionairies. For my generation we inhereted the online world as a place where we repositioned all our real world, physical hobbies into this new mode of collecting. Not initially at their expense, but as a way of documenting it. It was a wonderful time, for a moment. And then it started to consume us. And we handed that world to the next generation. And then it became an obsession and an addiction. We know this. We’ve been battling back against it long before Gen Z. Just in our own way. Gen Z has a digital world without the same noted enemies. Thus to disconnect means something very different.

Some of my thoughts anyways. As with anything, surveys like this tend to tap into two essential things- the particular shape of the present culture and world, and universal truths that one would think is inherent to any and every cultural moment. Reconnecting with the physical world seems intuitively attached to the latter. If nothing else (and for the record, and a completely anecdotal observation, my son, part of the Gen Z generation, laughed at the survey results and said there is no way that’s honest), it has the potential to open up healthy and helpful conversation. At least once we get past the headlines.